Some unofficial thoughts on Unofficial

I'm back. Blog apathy strikes again. I'm sorry, it's nothing personal.

Unofficial was this past Friday. I don't really have much to say about that subject. Most of my experience with Unofficial involved riding a bus home after work that smelled like stale beer.

Gerry Schweighart, the mayor of Champaign, and therefore the city government, appear to very much disapprove of Unofficial. They ramp up alcohol enforcement before and during the event. The News-Gazette's front article today calls the ticketed students "scofflaws", Unofficial a "bacchanal" that is "the most dreaded annual event on the UI campus."

This year, however, a 21-year-old UIUC student was struck by two cars while crossing the street Friday night and remains in critical condition. I don't know if this was Unofficial-related or not, but for the sake of pontificating, I will assume so.

This is the second significant injury that's happened during Unofficial in my time here. In 2006, a student was killed after falling off the back of a motorcycle.

I think it's time this stopped. I don't mean Unofficial; I'm not sure how you could stop that without giving the mayor dictatorial control over the city. I mean, I think it's time the city embraced Unofficial and made it safer. There are plenty of other communities that host crazy events; maybe we should look into how they do it. There's South Padre Island during Spring Break, for one. I assure you that Unofficial is the pale shadow of Mardi Gras's little brother's second banana.

For starters, I think that Campustown and possibly the roads around the main quad should be closed to street traffic.

It's important to remember that Unofficial isn't a creation of University students. It's a creation of a Campustown bar owner. It's the goal of Unofficial to get students into the bars to drink. That being said, allowing 18 to 20-year olds into bars on this weekend is just stupid. Of course they're there to drink.

I'm less concerned with creating a moral hazard involving alcohol and more interested in creating an environment where students can be their stupid selves and not be killed doing it.

UPDATE: Someone over at today's N-G article suggested making it a parents weekend. I think that's a great idea. I think the presence of a lot of students' parents would tone down the no-holds-barred partying. (Not to mention the possible expectation that they'd have to be awake before noon the next day.)

Is there any actual substance to Ken Howell's claims?

This week's local kerfuffle is about an adjunct professor who's contract was not renewed by the University. He's now claiming anti-Catholic bias because a student complained about his anti-gay bias. The N-G articles are here and here. I'm getting in on this late, so there's not really much point, but what the hell.

Something about this whole thing smells funny. I just don't buy it. Both articles say that his contract was not renewed (he was not fired) "after" the anonymous student lodged his complaint. One thing that's conspicuously missing from the articles is that he was let go as a result of this complaint. His contract wasn't renewed after the Hundred Years War, either, but that doesn't mean one led to the other. The only suggestion that Howell's contract wasn't terminated because of anti-Catholic bias is coming from Howell himself.

My skepticism is driven largely by one point: undergraduates just don't have this kind of influence. It's not like university administrators sit around thinking "Oh woe is me, I must now lay of a highly skilled teacher because we have had a single anonymous complaint." It's not like they sit around rubbing their hands together, cackling evilly, and plotting a new Protestant schism, either.

Can I point out that the University is undergoing a major financial crisis at the moment? The entire freakin' staff had to take a 3% pay cut and now they're going to have to find a way to pay the new CEO's university president's 40% raise over his predecessor's salary. It really wouldn't surprise me if departments were looking for any way at all to save a few bucks. Cutting non-tenure track teaching staff might be a good way to reduce labor costs. I've asked a few people and they didn't know if other adjuncts are being let go or not.

I suspect there's more going on here than we know about. At most, I'd bet that this was just an excuse to get rid of someone that has been a nuisance or a problem in other ways. That a teacher is being gotten rid of because of one anonymous complaint just doesn't wash.

I'm also amused of the irony in the fact Howell claims "[Natural Moral Law] says that Morality must be a response to REALITY" while simultaneously claiming he was discriminated against because of his membership in a Church that also teaches that demonic possession is real.

Hire me, not Michael Hogan

After Joeseph White resigned in disgrace a few months ago, the University of Illinois is replacing its president with University of Connecticut's Michael Hogan. This is a big enough deal that the NY Times published a profile of Hogan earlier this week.

This is the part of the article I found striking:

On the other, he’ll make a base salary of $620,000, comparable to the pay at Connecticut and a $170,000 increase over his predecessor.

Let me just point out for my readers that are not Illini (Hi, Mom) that the U of I is in the middle of a massive budget crisis. The state government currently has no budget and is hundreds of millions of dollars behind in payments to the University. Faculty and staff have been required to take several unpaid furlough days off this year, for an effective salary cut of about 3% across the board. There have been rumors that the University will not be able to make payroll much longer.

But this guy gets a raise of 40% over his predecessor. When was the last time you got a raise of 40%? (Not to mention the fact that the cost of living difference between Storrs, CT and Urbana means he's already getting a 22% raise just by moving here.)

I'm becoming more and more of the opinion that at this level, people are compensated out of proportion to the benefit they bring an organization, company, or in this case, a university.

I don't know anything about Hogan and don't really even know what the president of a university does. I have a hard time believing, however, that he will be doing a 40% better job, will be doing 40% more work, or will in some way bring 40% more benefit to the university than Stanley Ikenberry (who I also really know nothing about).

That's why UIUC should hire me to be its president rather than Hogan. I hereby agree to do the job for merely the $170,000 raise they are giving Hogan over his predecessor.

I freely admit that I'm not nearly as qualified (or, really, qualified at all) compared to an experienced administrator like Hogan. But I will do the job for a metric fuckton less money.